All that Glitters
by Oracle Five
Summary: Early on in the search for Triforce fragments, Link wonders about his task. After all, he only wanted to save his sister, right? One shot, set in Windwaker. Done for the Writer's Anonymous Color Challenge.


Here we go! My response to the Writer's Anonymous Colour Challenge, using **Gold**.

And Windwaker. Let's not forget Windwaker.

**OxOxO**

Disclaimer: I do not own Legend of Zelda

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"…It's so tiny," he said.

It sparkled prettily enough, even while it sat on the deck and he set to shoving the heavy iron chest overboard. It was a tiny little golden trinket, like those spots of sunlight sparkling on the water every dawn and dusk. Not much bigger, either.

It was supposed to be small, the King said. It was only a piece, a fragment of the whole. The entire Triforce was much larger, each piece as large as a man.

"Tetra's piece wasn't so big," he said.

They change size in the hands of their bearers, the King said. But this one didn't have a bearer at the moment, so it was all in its larger shape.

He wasn't sure if that made sense, but he stowed the fragment away. It twinkled at him, sending little golden speckles all over the place, even as he did it. There were seven more tiny little golden trinkets like this one to find, somewhere out amongst the waves and islands.

Right now, it was very peaceful here. Nothing to worry about, aside from the occasional too-nosy seagull, and he knew how to deal with seagulls. Anyone with a girl like Aryll for a sister would learn fast; she had a knack for attracting seagulls, for some reason. Grandma called it a special gift. He called it annoying, and risked Aryll's ire by chasing the birds when he saw them.

…Why was he out here? Aryll was safe now. Somewhere there was a pirate ship cutting a wake through the waves, and on it were several pirates and one seagull-attracting little girl. The giant bird with the great golden tail, the one that had taken her in the first place, was long gone now; she could go home and stop Grandma worrying. That was why he left home in the first place, to get her back. Now that she was safe, why was he out here, hunting down this golden treasure from the ancient past?

Well, he did owe Tetra. Those were her pirates and her ship that were dealing with Aryll's seagulls right now. She was the one who'd given him the chance to sneak aboard and catch a ride to the Fortress for his first foolhardy try at a rescue. And she was the one in hiding with a Triforce of her own. The only way to get back to where Tetra – Zelda was waiting was to gather these golden pieces together and get a Triforce for himself, right? That was what the King had told him.

He pulled out Aryll's spyglass and scanned the horizon. He didn't need it to know what that great dark tower over to the northeast was; the Tower of the Gods was so tall that could be seen from almost every part of the known waters. Taller than Dragonroost, it was. A gigantic marker for the spot where you could pass from the sea above to the kingdom sealed below the waves, the kingdom where the golden power of legend was supposed to reside.

That was where it should have stayed; stayed down there and left the sea and his sister alone. Instead it had surfaced in the hands of a monster, and a man. The stories had painted him to be a great monster, but the one who'd nearly killed him in one blow looked like a man. Only he was a man served by monsters, and who would monsters serve but one of their own kind?

"Should we keep going today?" he said.

If you want to, the King said. It's been some time since you had a break. While the situation is dire, we can't stop Ganon's machinations if you wear yourself out in the process.

The King would say things like that. Every once in a while, or after a particularly tough trial, the King would insist that he take a break, take a rest, do something to recover his strength. It irritated him, mostly. Idyllic as life back home had been, he wasn't some weakling child. He'd had to handle plenty of hard work back at home; the man's work that Grandma couldn't do and Aryll couldn't do. Of course, none of that had ever involved fighting monsters and chasing legends across the sea and back again.

And so he settled himself down on the King's narrow deck, just roomy enough for one person. And he folded his hands behind his head and he looked up, watching the clouds pass over head and feeling the wind tugging at his hair. On impulse, he slid the Windwaker baton out and held it up. Wiggling it around a little, he saw a bit of the wind curling and twisting the same way he was directing, clinging to the tip. A bit more wiggling and he had a tiny little cyclone dancing on the baton's end.

Don't tease them, the King said.

"I ain't teasing them," he said.

Since he knew he was, even though it was just a little bit, he still flicked the cyclone away and put the baton back in its proper spot. It only hovered a moment before untwisting and vanishing into the rest of the wind. This wind, he thought, is blowing across every island. It was blowing across Windfall, a bright place in its own way. It was blowing across Outset, his warm southern birthplace. It was blowing across Dragonroost's stony heights, across Forest Haven's wooden groves, and even the Forsaken Fortress's cruel walls.

Where is doesn't blow, he thought, is down below in the ancient kingdom of Hyrule. He'd breathed the air in that place and wondered why, for all the ancient world's majesty, the whole place felt so still and stifled. Even without the sea making a roof over the world, it was a closed-up place, a secret place that no one saw. The sea didn't have looming walls like that; how could you hold all that water in a tiny space? No, it reached out to the horizon, and that was the world he was comfortable with.

And now that other world, that world below the waves, the ancient one which had been sealed away because of the threat of the very man, the very monster who he was fighting against, was waking up.

"What happens after this?" he said.

Once we collect the entire Triforce, we can unlock the passage back to Hyrule, the King said. Then, after we collect Princess Zelda, the combined power of our Triforces can overwhelm the power of Ganon's Triforce, and we will finally put an end to his evil plans forever.

It sounded optimistic to him. And that wasn't what he'd asked.

"And after that? What happens when Ganondorf's gone? To Tetra and everyone else?" he said.

The King didn't say anything.

"You gonna leave Hyrule under the waves? Is Tetra gonna be stuck as a princess now?"

The King still didn't say anything.

He twisted his head around to get a look, but the King was staring straight ahead, the way he did when he was playacting as a normal boat. It was a personal question, but it was important. Life was up here on the waves now, not in the lands below. Except that that wasn't how things had always been, and he was sitting in a boat that ruled the world below and probably preferred that world over this one.

The sky and water had started turning red and orange and gold with sunset before the King finally answered him.

I don't know, the King said. I know it is something that must be discussed and dealt with, but we can wait until after we defeat Ganon to do so.

He knew it was a sore topic, so he let the King go at that. Instead, he pulled out that tiny little fragment they'd hauled up and held it to his eyes. In the fading sunlight, the gold gleamed brighter than ever.

The Triforce of Courage, eh…? So, was this a way to measure bravery by its weight in gold?

This was the Triforce that had once belonged to the legendary Hero of Time. The Hero of Time was the very same hero who'd worn the tunic and hat that he was wearing right now. I wonder, he thought, what the Hero of Time would think of the way things are now.

Then the wind blew some of his hair askew, and he shook his head and laughed.

-

**OxOxO**

_FIN_

**OxOxO**


End file.
